Does Bitcoin herald a revolution in how we will create, exchange and spend money? Launched in 2009 by an anonymous developer, Bitcoin saw a c.1300% spike in value since the beginning of 2013, before recent steep falls suggested it might be a bubble. The Atlantic noted that starting your own currency is "not as complicated as it sounds.

Where would we be today if certain women, men, young people, and also children had not arisen at moments when the human family seemed destined for the worst? They did not say: "Let things take their course!" Beyond the confrontations between persons, peoples, and spiritual families, they prepared a way of trusting. Their lives bear witness to the fact that human beings have not been created for hopelessness - Brother Roger of Taize, from "Peace of Heart in All Things: Meditations for Each Day of the Year."

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust - Henry David Thoreau

There is one common safeguard in the nature of prudent men, which is a good security for all, but especially for democracies against despots. What do I mean? Mistrust. Keep this, hold to his; preserve this only, and you can never be injured - Demosthenes (Athenian orator and statesman, c.385 -322 BC)